Matthew Dillon wrote:
The alternative is to set a specific endianess for the filesystem instone, just like the 'network byte order' concept locked in a particular byte ordering for packets. People today STILL hate thefact that they have to translate certain protocols to network byte order even when the machines on both ends use the same byte order, but one that happens to not be 'network' byte order.
But is this really so much effort compared to doing this thing only if the endianness differs between storage and native? I think code would always look something like: read data if (need_conversion) convert_data use data if (need_conversion) convert_data_back write data how is that different from: read data convert_data use data convert_data_back write_data yes, sure, there is *always* the conversion. but seriously, that's negligible compared to disk seek/write times.
We're not making that same mistake, hence the filesystem will be speced
for endian neutrality even if the code isn't written to support it right
off the bat.
I don't think having a fixed byte ordering is a mistake. Actually I fear that converting the byte order only if the orders differ might introduce more or at least more obscure bugs. cheers simon -- Serve - BSD +++ RENT this banner advert +++ ASCII Ribbon /"\ Work - Mac +++ space for low €€€ NOW!1 +++ Campaign \ / Party Enjoy Relax | http://dragonflybsd.org Against HTML \ Dude 2c 2 the max ! http://golden-apple.biz Mail + News / \
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